The passing of a legacy: Paterno's painful timing

Updated 11:51 pm, Sunday, January 22, 2012

If the cancer had been more kind, it would have come earlier. The cancer would have come, say, in late summer.

Joe Paterno would have been deified then, with the funeral of a head of state. Everything he'd accomplished would have been celebrated as his school began a season without him, and a long, remarkable life would have been saluted without compromise.

Later, when the scandal followed, there still would have been questions. But the Penn State Board of Trustees wouldn't have had to decide what to do with him, and Paterno wouldn't have been forced to mumble a sad regret.

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But cancer is rarely kind, and it wasn't early Sunday.

None of this erases a lifetime of achievement and perspective. College football's winningest coach was also its most refreshing. He ordered all of his players to clean Beaver Stadium after home games in 2007, for example, because a few got into a fight.

“I think that we need to prove to people,” Paterno said then, “that we're not a bunch of hoodlums.”

He cleaned up other areas at the same time, owning a conscience his sport doesn't always have. He raised money for his school, and gave away some, too. They name stadiums after some coaches; they named the library after Paterno.

He also attempted to make it a game. “I don't want us ever to become the kind of place where an 8-2 season is a tragedy,” Paterno told Sports Illustrated years ago. “Look at that day outside. It's clear, it's beautiful, the leaves are turning, the land is pretty and it's quiet. If losing a game made me miserable, I couldn't enjoy such a day.”

But the accusers of Jerry Sandusky today likely wonder where that Paterno was when they were in trouble. There's so much besides football, all right, such as protection from sexual abuse.

Paterno's explanation was hollow this month when he gave the Washington Post his only interview. “I didn't know exactly how to handle it,” Paterno said then, “and I was afraid to do something that might jeopardize what the university procedure was.”

That offered little to anyone, especially from the conscience of his sport. The best Paterno could do was frame the sadness, telling the Post how he was dismissed four days after Sandusky's arrest.

Then, Paterno and his wife were readying for bed when an assistant athletic director came to their door with a slip of paper that included the name of a trustee and his phone number.

From the Post: “They stood frozen by the bedside in their nightclothes, Sue in a robe and Paterno in pajamas and a Penn State sweatshirt. Paterno dialed the number.”

Tragic, heartbreaking — and the narrative of an 85-year-old legend who deserved a better ending.

Had the cancer been more kind, Paterno would have had one. He would have avoided what he contends he never knew existed, “rape and a man,” and he would have avoided much of the blame, too.

After all, others were more responsible, from Penn State administrators to local authorities. Paterno would have been linked, but weakly, obscured by charges he could no longer address. More than likely, the blame wouldn't have gone backward, to a recently deceased man whose statue was erected when he was alive.

As it is, this was the passing of a legacy. Paterno didn't die because of heartbreak, but because of cancer. It came suddenly, with Sandusky still facing charges, with the wounds still fresh.

All of it was sure to remain high in Paterno's obituary. Little would be left out, little forgotten. And nothing would be kind.